Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Temporance: habitual moderation; can be interpreted as people who take what they need and give the rest awayPrudence: exercise of sound judgement; modern usage has come to mean cautionFortitude: courageJustice: fairness

Bhuddist tradition (and here it gets more complicated because there are lots but they seem to come down to four main ones)

Loving kindness, compassion (hope that a person's suffering will diminish), altruistic joy for self and others, equanimity (accepting all sentient beings as equal; learning to accept positives and negatives equally)

Key questions:

Christianity and Hinduism seem devoid of anything specifically about compassion although maybe Christian thinkers would put compassion into charity?

Where does forgiveness fit in? Maybe it is not a virtue at all but something else? If something else, what is it? Who believes in forgiveness? All of them? Or just some of them? And if they believe, who do you forgive?

Tolerance - not mentioned in Christian or Jewish traditions explicitly. Wrapped up in something else or not applicable as a virtue?

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

The project is a response to the current financial crisis, the causes of which continue to be widely explored. Which ever way you look at it, greed and envy feature prominently. There is no clear view regarding how we are going to move out of the recession and overcome the broad range of personal and societal troubles it has brought to light. Fiscal easing means very little to most people - we need to start by changing ourselves.

We know that "acts of virtue" have a powerfully positive impact on us. The time is right to develop and present a practical understanding of virtue: what it is, what it does to us, and how to "do" it. To that end, I will be interviewing well known people who are leaders in their fields of writing, religion (broad spectrum), neuro-science, and psychology to explore what they understand by virtue and the role it plays in our lives, spiritually, physically, and psychologically.

People all over the country, in all walks of life, are frightened by the current financial crisis and they do not know what to do. They are hunkering down, taking fewer risks, and bringing less and less of themselves to their personal and professional lives. This isolation contributes to a downward spiral that will be increasingly difficult to reverse. Many people feel they are not in control of their lives and have no power to improve them. However, what almost everybody can control is their own behaviour.

The reality is that most attempts at change are unsuccessful because people don't know what to do differently "on Monday morning" to realise the benefits of changing. The graphs, charts, and accompanying speeches that communicate the perils of maintaining the status quo, or the benefits of changing it, may provoke an emotional reaction and even a genuine desire for change, but are simply not practical enough to be helpful.

My background is not journalism, but business. I was a partner in a global consulting firm, working mainly in financial services. To that end, I bring a practical understanding of the difficulties of corporate and personal change and a deep appreciation of the conflicts inherent in the modern (corporate) culture. I also happen to believe in the goodness of human nature and its infinite ability to adapt and grow. I genuinely believe the results of this project will provoke debate and inspire individuals to change for the better, and help them to do so.

She was a tiny, white haired lady weighed down with carrier bags, plain clothing and age. Her feet, clad in sensible, heavy shoes and sturdy brown tights were long and wide and her hands and wrists were thickened by struggle and hand washed laundry. She did not move quickly but she did not move slowly. She moved easily and steadily, looking this way and that for the best place to sit; like a bird.

She sat next to me.

“Is this the train to Kidderminster?

Good.

I’ve only got one eye. And I’m over 80. So they don’t let me out much any more.

What with only one eye.

I’ve got a husband at home and he’s 89. Imagine - 89.

He’s got no legs.

One cut off at the knee, one at the groin.

Gangrene.

89. Can you imagine?

We’ve been married 62 years.

We love each other.

We live in a bungalow on my daughter’s land. It was our land - the farm and the house. It took two and a half years to build the bungalow. Council took two and a half years - and my husband having no legs and had to be lifted up every step. But we live there now and the doors are especially wide for his electric chair.

Runs on batteries.

Do you know batteries?

My daughter has 6 children. 25, 23, 21, 19, 17 and then she got pregnant again after 14 years. Oh she was well out, didn’t know what to do, cried every day, thought about an abortion. She was over 40. I said I didn’t agree because it is against my religion. So now she has a son - a real little farmer he is.

They love him.

We had a farm in Wales in the hills.

Bad land.

We were very poor and couldn’t let our son farm with us even after he went to agricultural college.

He passed.

There just wasn’t enough land.

Well, my husband’s parents were still alive and we bought a farm in 1956 with the guarantors of a bank and eight years ago it was all paid off! We gave half to our children by a deed of gift.

It’s theirs now.

I was a Londoner and moved to Wales when I got married. I thought I’d have to leave him I was so homesick. So every time I’d get a bout I’d come back up to London, or he’d take me and I’d stay for five or six weeks and then my father would say: “Right, time to go back.” And I’d stay there eight or nine months until the next one. And this went on until the first child.

I looked after 300 chickens. I had to work. The farm was so poor we would not have been able to support ourselves. The money from the chickens was mine.

Then we bought some land here. 17 acres and a farm house.

It’s ours now.

My son has 70 milk cows and he visited his dad in the hospital every day. Imagine! I went every afternoon and the grand children took turns.

It’s because we love him.

When he had to go in the second time he thought his time was up.

“No it’s not.”

That’s what I told him.

And he was well enough to come home for Christmas.

He didn’t want to go back and I said we’d have to hire a private nurse. He cried because he didn’t think we could afford it but my son said: “If the doctor thinks you can stay home then you will stay home.”

He’s over 80 you know.

Is this Kidderminster?

If you can just help me down. I don’t like steps and they don’t do my lungs any good.

About Me

Jane Mason is the Gingerbread Girl.
I am an ex-partner in an international management consulting firm who is now a writer and an independent management consultant.
Currently I am working on a project to develop a contemporary understanding of virtue and how to embed it in society as a way to get us out of the mess that the financial crisis has brought to light.
I seek to make a positive impact on people around me and hope to help them make a bit more sense of their own worlds in some way.
To learn more about me, please see my website: www.gingerbreadgirl.name